You were always thinking up crazy shit

I just wanted to be somewhere else. I grew up thinking that everyone worked in the north and came home to the south like the world ended on Ayala Avenue. I grew up cradled by wide roads and gigantic mango trees, afternoons smelling like flour and butter and sugar and fried bananas. When you live in Paradise, all you want to do is leave it. The boy next door was a twin and I envied him: half because he had an entire Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers set but mostly because he had another him he could leave behind if he wanted.